Queen Of The Gypsies

She was truly retro. Sort of a new age CyberPunk in drag. A kind of UltraCool bohemian goddess masquerading as a secretary.

From the blond frightwig (ordered, one supposed, from the ELVIS PRESLEY Memorial Gift Catalog) to the mottled brown teeth (wood putty?) to the stockingless legs proudly displaying their varicose veins in all their uncovered glory, she had it down. This was more than performance, it was LIFE AS ART and she was its master. What dedication! What stamina! What pure, unadulterated commitment to an aesthetic! One could not help but admire her. She had created her own art form (Post-Sixties Anti-Counter-Culturism) and lived it. She embodied it as her lifestyle, her being. One wonders at the sacrifices she must have made-beauty, career, intelligence. It was a marvel to behold.

She rode the subway to work every day, coming in, one could only guess, from someplace like New Jersey, or Staten Island. (No detail was left unattended.) At work she was so completely incompetent, so extremely useless-harmful in fact-that it was a miracle she lasted the month (no longer). To be so dedicated to your art that your work life becomes a gypsian quest, this is the essence of paying your dues, of suffering for your art, a commitment so great that no sacrifice is beyond enduring. A true genius.